Having noted Galen’s criticism of the Empirics, we may imagine what their attitude would be towards his medicine. They would probably reject all his theories—which we, too, have finally discarded—of four elements and four qualities and the like, and would accept only his specific recommendations for the cure of disease based upon his medical experience; except that they would also be credulous concerning anything which he assured them was based upon his own or another’s experience, whether it truly was or not. They would, however, have probably questioned much of his anatomical inference from the dissection of the lower animals, since he tells us that they “have written whole books against anatomy.”[699] Considering the state of knowledge in their time, their refusal to attempt any large generalizations or to hazard any scientific hypotheses or to build any risky medical system was in a way commendable, but their credulity as to particulars was a weakness. [Sidenote: Galen’s standard of reason and experience.] On the whole Galen’s attitude towards experience seems an improvement upon theirs. He was apparently more critical towards the “experiences” of past writers than the average Empiric, and in his combination of reason and experience he came a little nearer to modern experimental method. Reason alone, he says, discovers some things, experience alone discovers some, but to find others requires use of both experience and reason.[700] In his treatise upon critical days he keeps reiterating that their existence is proved both by reason and experience. These two instruments in judging things given us by nature supplement each other.[701] “Logical methods have force in finding what is sought, but in believing what has been well found there are two criteria for all men, reason and experience.”[702] “What can you do with men who cannot be persuaded either by reason or by practice?”[703] Galen also speaks of discovering a truth by logic and being thereby encouraged to try it in practice and of then verifying it by experience.[704] This, however, is not quite the same thing as saying that the scientist should aim to discover new truth by purposive experiments, or that from a number of experiences reason may infer some general law of nature. [Sidenote: Simples knowable only from experience.]